


A Pointless Year Long Project To Analyze Every Possible Troll Ship

by bravelittletoreador



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Drabble Collection, Multi, not really a fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-13
Packaged: 2019-10-08 23:14:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17395562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bravelittletoreador/pseuds/bravelittletoreador
Summary: This is not a fic, this is suicide by reckless ambition.There are 858 possible ship combinations for just the 12 beta trolls. I plan to work through all of them one at a time postulating on how those characters might work together in each quadrant, posting two ships a day plus extras on my day off, in hopes of finishing in December. Maybe it'll inspire you to ship something in a way you've never considered before! More likely I'll burn out within a month and never finish! Wish me luck.





	1. Chapter 1

First, let's clarify my feelings on the quads real quick, so you have a frame of reference for how I interpret the ships. I've done some Super In Depth posts on the quads in the past, but let's just go for a quick refresher. I am assuming you have a basic familiarity with what quadrants are and how they work.

Let's get into this. 

♥ – Matespritship is a relationship based on mutual attraction, shared interests, and physical vulnerability without the expectation of responsibility/labor. A matesprit is someone you can relax around completely. They don't challenge you, or expect you to work on yourself, but allow you to be as you are. You can go out and have fun or lay around watching tv together and never feel pressured to talk about work or your problems. When you're together, it's just the two of you.

Matespritship is not a 1:1 analogue with human romance, though they have things in common. Most critically, human romance expects a romantic partner to meet all of your romantic, social, and emotional needs. Which is frequently unreasonable, but even when healthy and balanced is a lot more demanding than matespritship. Troll romance divides those needs up among multiple partners, so expecting to get them all from a matesprit (ie: expecting them to be just like a human romantic partner) is a recipe for disaster. A matesprit is not there to give you emotional support or comfort you or take care of you. Neither are they going to challenge or push you. A matesprit is there to be a place of comfort and physical intimacy where you can just be yourself.

 

♦ – Moirallegiance is a relationship based on emotional support, nurturing, emotional vulnerability with an eye towards self-improvement. It's not just about stopping highblood temper tantrums, and it shouldn't be one sided. It's two trolls opening up to one another on the deepest level and helping each other work through their issues. If you need to feel needed and take care of someone, if you need to vent and talk about your problems, and yeah if you're worried that youre going to lose your temper and kill people, you go to your moirail.

Moirallegiance is not friendship. It's a romantic relationship, with all that implies. Kissing, dating, possibly even physical intimacy. Moirallegiance being a generally non-sexual romantic relationship is an incredibly important thing to me. But the fact that it's not required for reproduction doesn't mean it isn't romantic, or that it's impossible for moirails to be intimate if they choose to be.

 

♠ – Kismesis is a relationship based on mutual attraction, admiration, rivalry, and shared interests with opposing viewpoints. Your kismesis is someone who challenges you. Seeing them being awesome at what they do makes you want to be better at what you do, if only to keep up with them, or rub it in their faces. Your kismesis is your equal in whatever you compete in and for one of you to dominate the other would mean an end to the relationship (or that you'll need to find something new to compete over) so it's all about constantly pushing yourself to stay on the same level. At its heart, kismesis is often a philosophical debate. You and your rival approach things in very different ways and both of you think the other has it wrong. Your fundamentally different povs are what cause real pitch sparks.

Kismesis is not inherently abusive, or about physically fighting one another, or based in "hate" as humans define it, any more than matespritship is based in "love" as humans define it. You don't "hate" your kismesis. You disagree with them, set yourself against them. You're opposed to something they champion, but if you just hated them in the human sense of the word you wouldn't want to be in a relationship with them. Being around your kismesis should be fun. You should enjoy the relationship and want to be around them, and even want to help and support them sometimes. You want them at their best so that when you beat them you know you won fair and square. They may annoy you and you probably disagree on some big fundamental things. But if it weren't for that *one thing* you would be friends, or even red for them. Most importantly, pitch does not require physically brawling with your partner. You can be pitch with someone and never throw a punch. There are other, better ways to compete. Pitch definitely doesn't involve intentionally injuring, maiming, or trying to kill your pitchmate.

 

♣ Auspisticism is a relationship based on mutual understanding, cooperation, and mediation towards a goal of turning misbegotten pitch feelings into stable ashen ones. Your Auspistice is someone who understands you and your ashmate deeply and cares about both of you. They can help you get to the root of your feelings like almost no one else. But unlike a moirail, their goal isn't to change or control you, but to help someone else see where you're coming from, and vice versa. Post mediation, your ashmate is someone who gets you and the way you think. They know just how to push your buttons, but also why you react the way you do, and thus how to avoid those things. Basically, you're drift compatible. 

Auspisticism is not a modifier for a pitch relationship, or a purely temporary function, or marriage counseling. It's a romantic relationship. And it's the most important quadrant frankly, because without it troll society couldn't function. Trolls are naturally hostile little shits who want to fight at the drop of a hat and think any helpful gesture is a pale solicitation. Without Auspisticism, not only would pitch infidelity run rampant (and all the carnage that would ensue) but it would be pmuch impossible to get anything done, because troll's ability to cooperate is, as we see in canon, incredibly limited. Auspisticism allows trolls to work together without devolving into mass violence. But all practical uses aside, it's also a *romance.* The three trolls feel ashen for one another (not pitch! this is not an Auspistice sitting on top of a pitch rom, this is an ashrom!) and love one another. All three of them. A lot of this is up to interpretation, but this much is non-negotiable- Auspisticism is a romance and all three trolls are In Love.

All in all, I'm of the opinion that a troll needs all four quadrants filled to have a balanced and emotionally fulfilling life. A matesprit or a moirail alone can't meet all your needs.

Alright well that took all morning and then some, so I guess I'll get into the actual relationship breakdowns tomorrow! We're going to start with Karkat and work our way down the hemospectrum, so tomorrow will be Karkat and Aradia, flushed and pale.


	2. Karkat and Aradia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it begins! I'm going to try and do all of Karkat's ships first, starting with Aradia and working our way up the hemospectrum.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1/13 Posting this chapter with Flushed and Pale. Tomorrow I'll add Pitch and the first of the Ashen ships to this chapter as an edit, maybe. Unless you guys think I should make every days entry a new chapter?? eh
> 
> 1/14 Bam! Knocked out Karadia Pitch, plus ten ashen ships! That's all the ash ships that feature Karkat and Aradia as bottom leaves. Tomorrow, I tackle Karkat as Auspistice.

Karkat♥Aradia  
Karkat once famously said that, were they not all about to die, he would have dedicated the whole team to finding a way to bring Aradia back to life. Before she died, they might have been a pretty stable flush pairing. Karkat wouldn't appreciate being dragged along on Indiana Jones style adventures, but they could compromise by watching cheesy adventure movies together. Karkat tears apart the shallow romance subplot, Aradia critiques the historical inaccuracies. Aradia's more than capable of shutting down Karkat's rants when she's heard enough. And his sense of caution and strategy might be helpful with her more reckless impulses. And her friendliness and enthusiasm might have softened some of the sharpness in how he relates to others sometimes. But I think the idea of this romance developing after her death might be more interesting. In a timeline where Sgrub was not an issue and Aradia's ghost was not preoccupied working with Sollux to create it, would she still have gone on so long pretending not to be dead? Would she gravitate to Karkat, who has such an excess of feelings about EVERYTHING, when she can barely remember what it was like to feel?  
Karkat sits up at his computer late into the day, ranting to her about some terrible movie. She nods along, trying to remember what it felt like to be so worked up about something so trivial. She words it that way at some point, and it takes her a while to realize that hurt him. Karkat reserves his blustering fury for the inconsequential. The genuinely hurtful he puts away and never speaks of. It's in her stilted attempts to explain why she wants his pointless ranting, why she needs it, that she finally reveals what happened to her. Karkat's angry, more than anything. At Vriska, at the world, at Aradia most of all. But he does what he said he would. He pulls everyone together to dig what's left of her body out of the rubble and search relentlessly for a way to bring her back. Maybe they go the soulbot route, and they fumble their way to romance as she tries to deal with emotions she no longer knows how to control, a body that can't feel. Maybe it's something better, something more real, and he gets to be the hero who helped her find herself again. Or maybe it's a doomed effort from the start, and Karkat's tragic romance is loving a ghost. Long nights in front of a screen, a long distance relationship of a different kind, longing to touch the untouchable, intangible, feeling too much or nothing at all.

Karkat♦Aradia  
I think this ship would be most interesting with soulbot Aradia. I could see her coming to Karkat for help when she realizes she can't control her emotions. After all, he's basically been engaged in a perpetual tantrum with brief periods of terrible apathy for as long as she's known him, and he's never murdered anyone. If anyone can help her handle this, it's him. His answer is romcom therapy. She's forgotten how to recognize her true, subtle feelings and has no experience with the violent impulses caused by her new blue blood. So he puts her through a grueling course of the most emotionally intense films in his shitty, shitty catalogue to help remind her what these things feel like. It's a sleep over, but it's a sleep over he is taking incredibly seriously. The popcorn and blanket fort are SERIOUS THERAPUTIC TOOLS, OKAY. Aradia never cared for these kind of movies before, but finds herself remembering how to be exasperated and amused in rolling her eyes at them. The most important feelings she finds again while watching, not the movies, but Karkat reacting to them. The way he genuinely tears up near the ending, and then tries to cover it by viciously tearing apart the unrealistic way the central arc was handled. How excited he gets when she expresses actual interest in his diatribe about the predictable plot lines being a framework for character exploration. The credits roll and they forget to put on the next movie, caught up in conversation. Karkat's voice gets quieter as he talks about love. He doesn't say "this is how i'd do it, if I could. This is how I wish someone would do it, for me," but Aradia's not dumb. She talks about before, little crushes, fledgling relationships, things that she'd hoped for. And she feels something again. Karkat would implode if she tried anything overt right then, but they're both aware of how pale the situation is. It lingers for days afterward, a warm ember glow in both their chests. Aradia cherishes that ember, breathes on it to keep it alive, because it's the first warmth she's felt since she died. She can't feel his hand on her face the first time he gets up the courage to pap her. But she feels that ember flare, and for now at least, that's enough.

Karkat♠Aradia   
You ever tried to fight a goat?   
The argument starts over something stupid. Aradia points out a technical inaccuracy in a movie Karkat made them watch, which she's only half paying attention to. Karkat, annoyed because this is a movie he is deeply passionate about, says perfect accuracy would have weakened the story and that the narrative is more important than perfect realism. I'm paraphrasing here obviously, the actual conversation involved a lot more colorful euphemisms. Aradia would rather argue than watch the movie, so she pushes the point. Being accurate only weakens the narrative because the writer structured the plot to depend on the inaccuracy. Karkat's rebuttal is that the metaphor depends on a layman's understanding of the subject. The technical details aren't what the movie is about, and spending time explaining them would bog down the pacing and make the movie less approachable. Aradia returns that the layman's understanding is inaccurate because of films like this perpetuating misinformation and that if a writer can't present accurate information in an organic and approachable manner, they're probably not a very good writer!   
Karkat flips the coffee table, flinging popcorn everywhere. They never finish watching the movie.   
Aradia dismisses the argument at first as Karkat being Karkat. But it stays with her. Especially when she receives the ten thousand word dissertation Karkat has written for her on the purpose of distorted reality in fiction. She's tempted to just type 'k' and forget it, but she glances over the first paragraph and finds herself pulled in. The next thing she knows she's hitting send on a massive essay of her own.  
The thing about Karkat and Aradia is that they are both incredibly stubborn. The moment one of them disagrees with the other, even if it's over a subject neither of them particularly care about, that subject instantly becomes the hill they will die on. They would sooner pull their own teeth than give in. Their field of competition is debate itself and they will debate absolutely anything. Karkat's aesthetics driven values butt heads continuously with Aradia's practical determinism and neither of them will let anything go, ever. Eventually it leads to them going on archeological expeditions together, both digging for evidence to prove the other wrong. Aradia, who hadn't previously cared much about analysis or rhetoric, gets very good at writing incredibly compelling papers. Together, they revolutionize the field of Alternian history- and then have to go on the run because that historical revisionism was there for a reason and now Condy, Handmaid, Scratch, and the whole Clown Church want them dead.

Karkat♣Aradia  
Here we encounter the Ashen Problem. There are ten possible ashen ship combinations in which Karkat and Aradia are the bottom leaf. Karkat also has ten distinct combinations in which he is the Auspistice and Aradia is one of the leaves. Which means of course, that there are also ten combinations where Aradia is the Auspistice and Karkat is a bottom leaf. I think you're starting to see where I'm going with this.  
There are, unless my math is wrong, 165 distinct Ashen ships involving Karkat, out of 660 total ashen ships, and specifically thirty ashen ships involving Karkat and Aradia.  
Basically, we're in for a bit of an ashen slog here so buckle up. If you don't think Auspisticism is the most interesting quadrant, you may be reading the wrong over the top quadrant analysis project. Let's see how many of these I can bust out at high speed. Going to start with Karkat and Aradia being mediated by someone else, then move on to Karkat as Auspistice, followed by Aradia mediating Karkat.  
For future reference, ashen ships will be written with the bottom leaves first and the Auspistice designated by asterisks.

Karkat♣Aradia♣*Tavros*  
This is one I can see happening pretty organically and being pretty successful, depending on the level of interference from outside the relationship, since Tavros is easily influenced and his level of efficacy as a mediator would fluctuate with his confidence/willingness to but in when an argument starts brewing. That said, the fact that he's close to both of them and a pretty levelheaded, thoughtful person means he's kind of ideal. There's some concern that they might steamroll over him considering how forceful their personalities are, but Tavros isn't as much of a doormat as the fandom likes to think. Not even Vriska could squash him all the time. I think, provided he had a successful start, not too many failures, and no one leaning over his shoulder telling him that he's doing it wrong, Tavros could be a very good Auspistice. And maybe having Karkat and Aradia on either side of him, supporting him, would also help keep his confidence levels high.  
I imagine it would start during the game, a high tension moment when a decision needs to be made and Aradia and Karkat butt heads over what to do. Pitch sparks start flying, but the team needs to cooperate in order to get through this, and a rivalry here could put them all at risk. Tavros steps up, maybe just trying to get Aradia to chill down at first, and hesitantly suggests a compromise (because, you know, he's canonically a pretty competent friend-leader!) which Aradia and Karkat reluctantly agree too. Later, Tavros talks to both of them separately and gets the rational behind their decisions. The next time things start looking pitch between them, Tavros remembers the earlier argument and recognizes the misunderstanding fueling the conflict, which is probably something along the lines of Aradia being very blunt and straightforward and getting frustrated by Karkat's habit of putting up a thousand walls to mask how he actually feels, and Karkat getting frustrated that she doesn't understand what he's trying to say, and also that she's trying to pry into his defensive shelf of emotional misdirection. Tavros more or less translates Karkat's profane shrieking into terms Aradia can understand, and the pitch wanes as they realize they actually agreed on what they thought they were fighting over. Later the three of them lay together on the floor of Tavros's hive, looking at his glow in the dark ceiling stars and playing troll animal crossing, and they have a proper ashen jam to work out a better way for Karkat to comfortably communicate on issues, and for Aradia to be more patient when Karkat gets evasive. It ends up helping Karkat communicate better in general, for which everyone is grateful, but he never stops having issues with it (and Aradia never stops wishing he would just say what he means already!) so Tavros becomes a stable part of the relationship, and their understanding of one another gets a little deeper every day.

Karkat♣Aradia♣*Sollux*  
This one would be funny, and also seems plausible to me if Aradia and Sollux are already Flush/Pale. It would be one dramatic mess at the start. Sollux and Karkat tend to lean a little pitch as it is, so they'd both get weird and insecure about it if Karkat and Aradia started pitch flirting over like, minecraft or something. Sollux and Karkat also share quad smearing tendencies, which they are both super insecure about. We know Sollux and Aradia aren't in just one quad, and Karkat in general seems more comfortable with human style romance. I see this eventually becoming ashen mostly in name only, while they actually vacillate all over the damn place. Aradia's chill with it, labels don’t bug her. Karkat and Sollux regularly have big fuckin melt downs about it, but when they aren't freaking out, the fact is they're both happier with a relationship where they don't need to conform to strict quad boundaries, and once they accept that the relationship becomes a huge source of relief and freedom for them. 

Karkat♣Aradia♣*Nepeta*  
Oof ouch this one is going to end in tears. Nepeta would probably be a decent mediator in most situations. I can see her using roleplay to help Karkat talk about his issues without having to directly relate them to himself. But her big unrequited red crush on him, plus her moirail's big unrequited crush on Aradia, means this relationship is going to get complicated fast. Nepeta won't be able to control her bias, and mediation with an ulterior motive is doomed from the start. They're going to need another Auspistice to break up this ashrom before it implodes.  
Karkat♣Aradia♣*Kanaya*  
A lot of people think of Kanaya as the default Auspistice, including Kanaya on occasion. But her overly-generalist approach to mediation can be a real weakness. Plus, Kanaya's Plan B when it comes to ashrom tends to involve a chainsaw. Not ideal. She'd be a good mediator for Karkat- she knows him well and understands what motivates him. But Aradia she's less in touch with. She was closer to Vriska which put her in opposition to Aradia often. If she tries to approach this Auspisticism too broadly and doesn't invest time in analyzing Aradia and getting to understand her, it's not going to work and Aradia will only resent being essentially an afterthought to whats effectively a relationship between Karkat and Aradia. 

Karkat♣Aradia♣*Terezi*  
This is another one that's probably going to go down in flames. Karkat's complicated feelings for Terezi might not sit well in an ashrom, which even in canon a lot of trolls seem to regard as "lesser" compared to other quadrants. And it's going to be complicated for Karkat to avoid talking about those complicated feelings during mediation. On the other hand, Terezi is an investigator at heart (even if she's sometimes not as good at it as she thinks she is) and I can see her taking a unique approach to mediation, basically treating it like one of her mock trials. She digs up the evidence on why the trolls in dispute are really arguing, interrogates them about it, and eventually passes judgment and probably some sort of punitive action she thinks will help them get along better in the future. I don't know if it would work per se, but it would be entertaining as hell. To be honest though, the first thing I imagined here was this ashrom imploding almost immediately and Terezi riding off on the back of Aradia's motorcycle leaving Karkat weeping in the dust. Sorry buddy, Aradia is just too hot and Terezi knows it.

Karkat♣Aradia♣*Vriska*  
Woo boy. Speaking of dumpster fires. Vriska should not ever mediate anyone under any circumstances. She is the worst possible person you could pick to Auspistice, because she is completely incapable of not projecting onto everyone around her. She can't understand and communicate other people's motivations, because she can't see them past her own. She'd probably need to be tricked into even attempting this (by tricked, I mean someone would need to say "you cant do that." because that is all it would take.) but she would then cast herself in the role of Greatest Auspistice Ever. There would be max 1 feelings jam. She swans in, plops herself between them, and spends like an hour telling them both how absolutely shitty they are while also transparently talking about herself. In the end, Aradia fuckin decks her and agrees to a compromise with Karkat just so they never have to do this again. Mediation successful…?  
Karkat♣Aradia♣*Equius*  
LMAO. okay. How did this happen. First of all, I love Equius. I'm a certifiable Equius stan. I can only imagine this scenario being the result of Equius deciding it's his duty as an educated and superior blue blood to separate these squabbling peons. You can imagine how well Karkat or Aradia would react to him approaching them like they're children on the playground and he's the PE teacher. At the same time, both of them are lowbloods that Equius admires (and kind of wishes would step on him) so he's going to have a very difficult time controlling the conversation. They'll run right over him. He'll be good at separating them only in the sense that he can easily pick both up and hold them at arm's length from each other. Maybe he'd be good at being one of those "bonding through mutual dislike" Auspistices. Anytime they start pitch flirting, he looms out of the darkness, breathing heavily, sweating heavier, and asks if they'd like him to (*shuddering at the brazen lasciviousness of such a direct proposition*) mediate. They immediately drop the argument, reminded that the potential consequences involve Equius assigning them book reports on highblood literature and musing about noblesse oblige. Karkat buys him a milkshake later, half as a thank you, half as an apology. Equius is very uncertain about how to interpret this gesture.

Karkat♣Aradia♣*Gamzee*  
We're gonna go with Gamzee's characterization from before he was possessed and mindcontrolled just to make this more plausible. In which case, I don't doubt at all that if he saw them arguing, Gamzee would immediately amble over and try to get them both to chill out. Pre-murder he's real averse to conflict, but he's also very forward and socially clueless enough to miss the romantic implications of interjecting, no matter how obviously flustered it makes Karkat. At first, they both agree to mediation because Gamzee admits that seeing them fight makes him feel the way he sometimes feels in the middle of the day when he wakes from a daymare and the sopor has worn off and" this big black void opens up in his chest and vomits out a blind and wheeling rage like a burning ant hill and his teeth scream for the satisfaction of blood." And making Gamzee feel that way is, they decide, probably not a good idea. So they placate him with one ashen feelings jam. He sets it all up himself and is very proud, even though the bean bag chairs smell weird and he forgot about cleaning his hive. He brings out the pies, cause how can they really get in touch with their emotions without pie? Aradia draws the line at this, calls up Nepeta and gets her to bring over some of her nip stash. Karkat has never even seen a weed, he's a total lightweight and super giggly. Aradia gets high with Sollux and Nepeta like once a week, and likes to do mushrooms in ancient ruins and receive visions of the past, so she's barely affected, just a little more chilled out. Gamzee gets properly baked for the first time, which is a revelation for him. I like to think he's surprisingly insightful when he's high. He probably says a ton of dumb shit too, but occasionally he'll open his mouth and this shocking, revelatory wisdom will fall out. Or at least it seems shocking and revelatory when you are also high. And he's WAY more observant than anyone gives him credit for. About an hour in he's calmly laying out both karkat and aradia's deepest fucking insecurities while they listen in shell shocked silence. He doesn’t have solutions and doesn't offer them, but he can tell them flat out what they problem is, even if they haven't admitted it to themselves yet. And as long as you keep him from thinking too much about his own problems, it all stays incredibly chill. Karkat's inhibitions are pretty thoroughly shattered by his first experience with drugs, and he's able to actually talk earnestly with Aradia about whatever caused the argument. Aradia isn't as fazed by the drugs, but something about Karkat's genuine openness and Gamzee's zen understanding makes her more receptive than she'd usually be as well. All three come out of the experience much closer. Karkat privately remembers it as an almost spiritual experience. Aradia tells him that's just the weed, and she almost believes it too. 

Karkat♣Aradia♣*Eridan*  
Eridan's not a great Auspistice, and probably wouldn't be enthusiastic about the idea at first, since he tends to think the pale/ashen quads are a step down from flushed/pitch. Once he'd had a proper taste of it however I think he'd desperately want to be a good Auspistice. The deep emotional connections he craves, plus the feeling of being needed and important and in control? He would love it. He would also be really bad at it, because he's not very good at reading and understanding other people's feelings, and has a tendency to make every conversation about him. With Karkat as one of the leaves he'd have a better chance of success than with anyone else. Karkat gets that Eridan can be emotionally dense sometimes and is generally more patient with him than anyone else. He could probably help steer things back on track when Eridan slipped into treating mediation like a feelings jam with two moirails. But Aradia would have zero patience for his shenanigans and would probably walk out or drop a sofa on him when he inevitably said something incredibly insensitive. And of course, even if somehow he made the ashen thing work, Eridan would probably start vacillating red or pitch for one or both of them eventually. This one is just not going to work.

Karkat♣Aradia♣*Feferi*  
This one would be interesting. Not sure what scenario would cause it, but Arafef is cute in any context. An obvious issue would be Feferi's beforan style sensibilities. She's as hemoist as Eridan or Equius, just in a very different way. She thinks she knows best, always, and doesn't stop to question that often. Which would make her a very ineffective Auspistice, especially to a pair of lowbloods. She assumes she knows what the problem is and the best solution for it, so she doesn't really bother to ask, just goes about doing whatever she thinks needs to be done (because obviously she can't expect her ash mates to handle it) and assumes that it's working exactly the way she planned, even if it's really obviously not. Things would need to go quite badly wrong to convince her to stop playing caretaker and actually sit down and talk about the issue. And even once they did, she's not a very diplomatic personality. She's used to getting her way. Compromises and understanding aren't her strong suit. This sounds like I really don't like Feferi. I swear I do, honestly. She's just not good Auspistice material!


End file.
